Can YA Love is dedicated to creating a global community that believes in helping people sustain the basic necessities of life. To achieve this goal we build and develop farming systems that can thrive in some of the harshest and most densely populated environments on Earth.
Can YA Love was created to improve and transform slum communities around the world by teaching residents to create sustainable urban gardens. Our ultimate goal is to catalyze a community of self-reliant growers learning from each other. To achieve this goal, we have created a new kind of gardening system, using what we call a “growing pillar” to increase growing surface area in places like slums where space is often extremely limited. Our work also involves educating youth about how to create these space- and water-efficient gardening systems to grow organic fruits and vegetables for their families and communities.
The inspiration for our growing pillars came from founder Ben Friton's visit to the Kibera slum just outside Nairobi, Kenya. Because of compounding factors like a lack of non-toxic ground space, toxic rainwater run-off, water shortages that make irrigation difficult, and topsoil erosion during the rainy season, the people of Kibera have been growing crops in burlap sacks. By puncturing the fabric and planting seeds in the sides of the sack, families can grow healthy food that is easy to maintain in an informal settlement. These “sack gardens” were cited by many in the community as a critical component of survival during the post-election violence of 2007-08 and the subsequent food crisis. Inspired by this example of self-reliance and sustainability, Can YA Love set out to create an even more productive version of these sacks.
The “growing pillar” technology we've created address a number of problems one encounters when trying to grow food in an urban setting. Most slums around the world are very densely populated, meaning there is no space to grow food in large quantities. In addition, these informal settlement communities do not have sanitation, running water, or adequate soil for large food production. People living in slum conditions do not have a lot of money to buy fresh food from a store and therefore rely on unhealthy foods such as processed and preserved food because they are easily stored and cheap. Can YA Love's vertical garden technology solves all of these problems.
The growing pillar is a vertical structure that can produce 100-130 square feet of growing space while taking only 7-9 square feet of ground space, making them ideal for places where space is limited. Our more productive gardens means more food can be grown then was ever possible before. Because they are separate structures from the ground, the condition of the ground soil is irrelevant. This is important in the places we work where ground soil is toxic from the lack of toilets and sanitation.
Building these gardens in poor communities increases access to low-cost/healthy food. This is as important in places like Kenya as it is in Washington, D.C. Our vertical gardens use timed drip irrigation systems that minimize evaporation and can be built with a water capture system to collect any excess water. Conserving water is very important in places that don't have running water and places that don't see a lot of precipitation, as is the case in Kenya. Because our gardens can be built to any shape and size, shorter varieties are ideal for children, the disabled, and the elderly; populations that are not normally able to garden. In addition to the benefits of using our vertical gardens, Can YA Love teaches the importance of aerobic composting for the health of the garden and the food being grown in it.
Ultimately Can YA Love's objective is to spread the vision of community gardens with a focus on aerobic conditions and collective research & development for the benefit of people all over the world. We collect data from active farmers to find solutions that may help farmers in other corners of the globe. Can YA Love hopes to have sister organizations throughout the world, run by local community activists, who are growing food for their community and sharing their experiences with other farmers and collect local information for local farmers.